See the Beauty in Our Communities

Paul Gruchow
Voices for the Land

A place is not a thing; it is a relationship. A location becomes a place only in the context of time, of history. Beauty has little to do with it, or rarity, or purity. It is quite easy to love an urban alley, or an old swamp, or an abandoned lot, or a dirt road as it is to love the Mississippi river, or the North Shore, or the Boundary Waters. Beauty in nature is like beauty among human beings: it lies in the eyes of its beholders. Our streets and neighborhoods are not, in the main, those one would first think of to try to save. But we should think of them and try to beautify and save them. Ordinary places are as necessary to a good community as are ordinary people. Let us celebrate them; places people both, every one.

Beauty in Communities

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